4 ms·

We are not anywhere near the point where the panic of this virus is worse than the potential outcome of the virus. If anything there is not ENOUGH strong movem

We are not anywhere near the point where the panic of this virus is worse than the potential outcome of the virus. If anything there is not ENOUGH strong movement being made.

nostromo 7y ago
Yes, we need more panic. Maximum panic please! For a disease that has a 0.5% fatality rate, and the medium death age is over the average life expectancy of one's country. And most scientists believe we can't stop it anyway. Yes, let's burn down the modern world and suspend all civil rights for this.
- VectorLock 7y ago
  Yes we should be so flippant about hundreds of thousands of people dead. How dare you ask me to sacrifice going to a restaurant for that?
  - nostromo 7y ago
    For you it's not eating out. For working families it's losing their jobs, their healthcare, and their housing because a bunch of healthy young people, that are facing almost no risk, are afraid to leave their apartments. In Seattle we're one week into this and 50+ restaurants have closed and hundreds of jobs have been lost. Those people can't pay rent and now have no healthcare. That's one week. In one month it'll be much worse. By the way, you can prevent a malaria death for about $50 in Africa. It kills 500,000 people a year. How many dinners have you sacrificed to save those lives, personally?
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > Those people can't pay rent and now have no healthcare. That's a problem specific to America. But regardless, what got is "having healthcare" if you don't actually have healthcare, because the whole system gets DDoSed by COVID patients in critical condition?
    - robryk 7y ago
      > By the way, you can prevent a malaria death for about $50 in Africa. Could you point at a source of that? Last I've seen the Against Malaria Foundation was estimated to save 1 life for every couple thousand dollars.
      - loeg 7y ago
        Yeah, GiveWell estimates $2331/death averted for AMF (2019). See sibling comment for their spreadsheet.
    - loeg 7y ago
      > By the way, you can prevent a malaria death for about $50 in Africa. This figure is fictitious; you just made it up. AMF, one of the most cost-effective anti-malarial charities in Africa, averts one death for about every $2331 in donations, per GiveWell's 2019 analysis: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zLmPuddUmKsy3v55AfG_e1Quk-ngDdNzW-FDx0T-Y94/edit#gid=1364064522 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zLmPuddUmKsy3v55AfG_... (Listed as: "Cost per death averted at any age.") > How many dinners have you sacrificed to save those lives, personally? Personally? Not that it's any of your business, but I've given $50k to the Against Malaria Foundation.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Something something 20% hospitalization rate * number of infected people >> healthcare capacity of any country -> a lot more than 0.5% of fatalities, + all the other deaths for all other kinds of medical emergencies, which only happen because doctors have to aggressively triage patients.
  - nostromo 7y ago
    Obviously we should try and slow it down. But there's a fine line between slowing it down and overreacting.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Overreacting would be nuking the affected cities. Locking down a country to give healthcare a chance to cope will have some unpleasant economic consequences, but it won't "burn down the modern world and suspend all civil rights".
      - nostromo 7y ago
        > Overreacting would be nuking the affected cities. Well, yes, at least we agree on something. Apparently anything short of mass genocide is under-reacting to HackerNews.
- skosch 7y ago
  0.5% is a textbook number, not the sorry-the-hospital-is-full number, which has in some places been closer to 5%.
  - loeg 7y ago
    Well, it's the real number in places that took this virus seriously and have enough case history to develop accurate numbers: China outside of Hubei; South Korea. Likely other east Asian countries that are showing slow growth rates will have similarly low death rates due to not overflowing their hospitals: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. You're completely correct that the rate is more like 3-5% in Iran, Italy, and probably the US at this rate.
- loeg 7y ago
  The fatality rate is only as low as 0.5-0.9% in countries that aggressively locked down, quarantined, and built temporary medical facilities in order to flatten the curve so health care facilities could keep up with urgent cases. In places where no aggressive action is taken, fatality rates are much, much higher (3-5%) — because otherwise treatable cases can not be treated, and the marginally more ill die for lack of treatment. The difference between 0.9% and 3% of the US population (per Census.gov ~329 million estimate) is 6.9 million people. https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

We are not anywhere near the point where the panic of this virus is worse than the potential outcome of the virus. If anything there is not ENOUGH strong movement being made.

nostromo 7y ago

Yes, we need more panic. Maximum panic please! For a disease that has a 0.5% fatality rate, and the medium death age is over the average life expectancy of one's country. And most scientists believe we can't stop it anyway. Yes, let's burn down the modern world and suspend all civil rights for this.

VectorLock 7y ago
Yes we should be so flippant about hundreds of thousands of people dead. How dare you ask me to sacrifice going to a restaurant for that?
- nostromo 7y ago
  For you it's not eating out. For working families it's losing their jobs, their healthcare, and their housing because a bunch of healthy young people, that are facing almost no risk, are afraid to leave their apartments. In Seattle we're one week into this and 50+ restaurants have closed and hundreds of jobs have been lost. Those people can't pay rent and now have no healthcare. That's one week. In one month it'll be much worse. By the way, you can prevent a malaria death for about $50 in Africa. It kills 500,000 people a year. How many dinners have you sacrificed to save those lives, personally?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > Those people can't pay rent and now have no healthcare. That's a problem specific to America. But regardless, what got is "having healthcare" if you don't actually have healthcare, because the whole system gets DDoSed by COVID patients in critical condition?
  - robryk 7y ago
    > By the way, you can prevent a malaria death for about $50 in Africa. Could you point at a source of that? Last I've seen the Against Malaria Foundation was estimated to save 1 life for every couple thousand dollars.
    - loeg 7y ago
      Yeah, GiveWell estimates $2331/death averted for AMF (2019). See sibling comment for their spreadsheet.
  - loeg 7y ago
    > By the way, you can prevent a malaria death for about $50 in Africa. This figure is fictitious; you just made it up. AMF, one of the most cost-effective anti-malarial charities in Africa, averts one death for about every $2331 in donations, per GiveWell's 2019 analysis: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zLmPuddUmKsy3v55AfG_e1Quk-ngDdNzW-FDx0T-Y94/edit#gid=1364064522 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zLmPuddUmKsy3v55AfG_... (Listed as: "Cost per death averted at any age.") > How many dinners have you sacrificed to save those lives, personally? Personally? Not that it's any of your business, but I've given $50k to the Against Malaria Foundation.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Something something 20% hospitalization rate * number of infected people >> healthcare capacity of any country -> a lot more than 0.5% of fatalities, + all the other deaths for all other kinds of medical emergencies, which only happen because doctors have to aggressively triage patients.
- nostromo 7y ago
  Obviously we should try and slow it down. But there's a fine line between slowing it down and overreacting.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Overreacting would be nuking the affected cities. Locking down a country to give healthcare a chance to cope will have some unpleasant economic consequences, but it won't "burn down the modern world and suspend all civil rights".
    - nostromo 7y ago
      > Overreacting would be nuking the affected cities. Well, yes, at least we agree on something. Apparently anything short of mass genocide is under-reacting to HackerNews.
skosch 7y ago
0.5% is a textbook number, not the sorry-the-hospital-is-full number, which has in some places been closer to 5%.
- loeg 7y ago
  Well, it's the real number in places that took this virus seriously and have enough case history to develop accurate numbers: China outside of Hubei; South Korea. Likely other east Asian countries that are showing slow growth rates will have similarly low death rates due to not overflowing their hospitals: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. You're completely correct that the rate is more like 3-5% in Iran, Italy, and probably the US at this rate.
loeg 7y ago
The fatality rate is only as low as 0.5-0.9% in countries that aggressively locked down, quarantined, and built temporary medical facilities in order to flatten the curve so health care facilities could keep up with urgent cases. In places where no aggressive action is taken, fatality rates are much, much higher (3-5%) — because otherwise treatable cases can not be treated, and the marginally more ill die for lack of treatment. The difference between 0.9% and 3% of the US population (per Census.gov ~329 million estimate) is 6.9 million people. https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...